


Light and Darkness Both Together

by sinuous_curve



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Impact Play, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was little to be found in the City of Elua that could raise the collective attention of Valerian House. When Bastien heard his fellow adepts murmuring to each other in low voices, heads bowed as they walked quietly through the upper halls of the House, he knew something was happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light and Darkness Both Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).



But thou art Light and Darkness both together:  
If that be dark we cannot see:  
The sun is darker than a Tree,  
And thou more dark then either.

Yet thou are not so dark, since I know this,  
But that my darkness may touch thine:  
And hope, that may teach it to shine,  
Since Light thy Darkness is.

 _Evensong_ , George Herbert

There was little to be found in the City of Elua that could raise the collective attention of Valerian House. When Bastien heard his fellow adepts murmuring to each other in low voices, heads bowed as they walked quietly through the upper halls of the House, he knew something was happening.

Night had just fallen on the City and through the windows he could see the sky spread out, tinged in shades of darkest purple and blue. The stars shone brightly, as did the burning lights from hundreds of lamps lining the streets. The Longest Night was approaching quickly, and members of the Night Court had begun to feel the fervor shivering along their limbs. Some Houses saw their number of visitors drop off, but not Valerian. Their ilk came more frequently, in need of some small release before the night of wanton, abandoned revelry.

In the large chamber that served as bedroom to all the adepts of his age, Bastien caught another adept, a friend of his named Mael, by the arm and asked, “What’s going on?”

Mael smiled, green eyes flashing with mischief. “Special visitors, it seems.”

Bastien arched an eyebrow. “Shahrizai?”

“It usually is.” Mael shrugged with careful carelessness. Bastien eyed him; they had come to Valerian House at the same time, as children, and there was little Mael could keep from him. “Well,” Mael said eventually, glancing at the passing adepts. “Giselle said she saw the Courcel device on the carriage.”

As an adept of Valerian House and a scion of Kushiel, there was very little that could shock Bastien. Yet he was still hard-pressed to keep his jaw from dropping open and he could see Mael’s delight at the fact. “Courcel. You know what that means.”

“Prince Imriel,” Mael supplied, nodding.

“Yes,” Bastien agreed. “Likely with some of his cousins.”

Mael chuckled. “Which means there are going to be some very envied boys and girls in the morning.”

Of all the many men and women who had ever come from the Shahrizai line, Imriel was one of the most famous. Truthfully, were it not for his mother, Bastien would have called him _the_ most famous. Melisande, traitor though she was, held a reputation beyond explanation in Valerian House. Her cruelty was famed as god-touched and rumor held that her son had inherited her many talents.

No adept wanted to be overlooked when the Shahrizai came to partake of their private dungeons; doubly so for the rare occasions when Prince Imriel lighted on Mont Nuit. His rare forays in Valerian House, beginning with the ill-fated first night, were very nearly legendary.

The members of Valerian House waited with poorly concealed impatience for the Dowayne to make the choice of who she would summon to attend on the waiting patrons. Bastien was no better than the rest; he examined his appearance in a small mirror, thinking of the wildly murmured stories the adepts told of Imriel and of his own nearly completed marque. A night with the Courcel prince could make his bond.

Bastien traced his eyes over the sharp bones of his reflection, the rich brown of his hair. He would give a night to the Courcel prince and the Shahrizai purely in the name of Naamah and Kushiel’s purifying grace.

Mael, always twitchier, paced between his and Bastien’s beds. Strands of auburn hair whipped around his perpetually cheerful face as though he was caught in his own tempest. Bastien thought it no accident he’d been born during a maelstrom and thus earned his name. “You’re going to make me nervous if you keep that up,” Bastien commented lightly.

“Forgive me,” Mael said ruefully. He dropped to his bed with a thump that mussed the carefully arranged sheets and blankets. Betimes Bastien wondered at Mael’s place in Valerian, with his ceaseless good cheer and absent, accidental carelessness. Then he remembered the boundless joy with which Mael submitted, and Bastien reminded himself that there were many ways to find surrender.

“Who do you think she’ll send?” Mael asked suddenly. “It’s been _months_ since Prince Imriel last came. Half of them have made their marques since.”

Bastien very well remembered that night and the jealousy they had all felt watching the handful adepts walk toward the dungeons. He shook his head. “Who can say? It depends on who else might have come with him, _and_ whether or not it was Prince Imriel at all. The Shahrizai all have their tastes. It’s not our place to question that,” Bastien chided gently.

Mael smiled. “I know, I know. But there’s no harm in hoping.”

A quarter of an hour slowly crawled past and the nervous buzz among the adepts climbed to a fever pitch. Bastien wondered that the other houses weren’t deafened by the incredible noise of dozens of eager adepts trading rumor and hope and elaborate fantasy. Bastien kept to his bed, slowly counting the inhale and exhale of his breath. Mael resumed his frenetic pacing, absently and compulsively fixing his already impeccable hair and clothing.

A sudden resounding silence descended when the Dowayne’s pair of couriers arrived, one a woman with hair like spun gold and one a man with bottomless dark eyes. The adepts stared at them with a tension so heavy Bastien imagined he could feel it pressing between his shoulder blades.

“The Dowayne summons the following adepts,” the woman said in a rich, clear voice. “Noelle.”

A young woman with her marque just barely begun stepped forward. She kept her dark hair wound about her head in intricately woven braids that patrons very much liked to pull and tease. Her eyes widened momentarily at the sound of her name, but she steadied quickly.

“Etienne and Michel.”

They were a pair of twins with the palest coloring of any adept in Valerian. They looked very nearly Skaldic to Bastien with wheat yellow hair and light blue eyes the color of the sky at high summer. Patrons delighted in their duality and no one, not even the Dowayne, could reliably tell them apart.

“Marion.”

She was a friend of Bastien’s, with a quiet, steady temperament and a glory of pain so simultaneously soaring and grounded as to be as close to anguisette as those untouched by Kushiel could ever be. She glanced, smiling, at Bastien through the middling brown curtain of her hair.

“And Bastien.”

It took a very long moment for Bastien to realize the woman courier meant _him_.

Bastien stood slowly, heart pounding in the cage of his ribs as though it wanted to burst free from the confines of his chest. Half dazed, he looked at Mael’s wistful, envious, proud smile. _Go on_ , Mael mouthed and Bastien shook his head. Whatever else Prince Imriel de la Courcel was, he was a patron of Valerian House and Bastien an adept. No more, no less.

The Dowayne’s couriers led the five selected adepts away to renewed chorus of furious whispers. Bastien pitied any other patrons that might seek their pleasures that night; he thought they might find the service somewhat more absent than usual. He fell in step with Marion, behind the twins and pretty Noelle.

Marion laced her blunt, steady fingers in his as they walked through the familiar, lushly appointed corridors of the house. “An assignation is an assignation,” she murmured. “So stop looking like someone knocked you on the back of the head.”

With effort, Bastien managed to stifle a bark of laughter. Marion squeezed his hand affectionately.

The couriers led them to the main floor of the House, then began the descent into the labyrinth of dungeons that ranged far and complex beneath. The air cooled as the steps fell away beneath their feet, sending prickling waves of goosepimples ghosting along Bastien’s skin. He easily recognized the winding route to the Shahrizai’s private dungeons. Rare was the Valerian adept who had never passed a night in the service of Naamah among the scions of Kushiel. When they arrived, the male courier pulled open the heavy, ornate door and the woman filed them inside.

As the door closed, Bastien’s training took over.

The adepts took their placed _abeyante_ in a line, eyes trained on the worn flagstone floor. The couriers exchanged a few murmured words with the patrons, then took their leave, closing the door firmly in their wake.

Bastien could hear the appreciative whispers of the patrons as they took stock; he could feel their languid eyes ranging over his skin. Warmth, and anticipation, pooled low and lovely in his belly. He didn’t approach submission with the expansive joy of Mael or with Marion’s steadiness, but he found revelry beneath rod and flail, and completeness.

“What will you?” a light, nearly mocking voice suddenly asked. Bastien though it that of Mavros, though he could hardly lift his head to be certain. He had passed nights in the dungeon with groups that included the smiling Shahrizai lordling. He laughed as he wielded the flogger and pressed affectionate kisses to the stripes he raised.

A woman’s chuckle sounded. From the corner of his downcast eyes, Bastien could see the sweep of her gown. “What’s your name, blackbird?”

In a steady voice, the answer came. “Noelle.”

The lady sighed richly and led Noelle away; then a pair of musical voices claimed both Etienne and Michel, leading them to the crosses against the far wall. A man with a voice that rumbled smoothly like thunder on a night sky claimed Marion. Bastien saw his polished leather boots and imagined them on his back, pushing him into the ground. His mouth went dry with want at the thought.

The mocking voice, Lord Mavros, sounded out again, closer. “He’s lovely,” Mavros commented, tucking two fingers beneath Bastien’s chin. “Though I’d not have thought him to your taste, Imri.”

Someone rose from one of the low couches that lined the far wall and came close enough for Bastien to feel the heat of his body, and smell the faint spice of his scent. He wore much used leather boots with a faint sheen of dust coated over the black surface and loose, comfortable breeches. His presence lit Bastien on fire with want.

“I’m expanding my repertoire,” he said lightly. “What’s your name, adept?”

“Bastien.” His tongue stuck to the roof his mouth and the word came out low and thick.

“And your _signale_?”

Mavros chuckled. “Always so formal, Imriel.”

A shudder flared through Bastien. He had suspected, known even. Most of the Shahrizai were familiar enough faces and their Kushiel-touched presence made Bastien yearn to be on his knees. But none of them could do with sheer presence what this man did now to Bastien. Prince Imriel de la Courcel, son of Melisande. Bastien faintly heard the roaring sound of surf that always murmured his name when he took a patron. It beckoned him down to submission, to the place of thoughtless, senseless, glorious grace.

“Formalities are important,” Imriel said, brushing a stray piece of hair from Bastien’s face. “Moreso in this place than most, cousin.”

“It’s verlain, sir,” Bastien said quietly. He sought in himself the expansive well of calm that was his constant anchor. “My _signale_.”

“Verlaine,” Imriel echoed, and after a moment, Mavros. “Verlaine.”

Bastien could hear the muted noises coming from the other Shahrizai and their chosen adepts; leather tawse on flesh, the sharper snap of a whip, and the solid smack of someone using their hands. Mavros and Imriel circled Bastien wordlessly; it took all his many years of training to keep from raising his head and drinking in the sight of them.

He jumped slightly when a length of raw black silk descended over his eyes, plunging the dim dungeon into complete blackness. “Steady, pet,” Mavros soothed, tying the fabric securely around Bastien’s head. “Can you see?”

“No, sir.”

Bastien’s senses, already heightened from the thrumming anticipation of rough hands laying into his flesh, further sharpened. He felt Mavros’ warmth at his back, scented Imriel to his side. He could hear the torches on the wall gutter and pop in the slight, cool breeze that always coursed through the dungeons. He had no notion of what to expect from Imriel, about whom so many stories were told and so little was known. When Imriel’s hand curled around his chin, Bastien only just kept himself from betraying a reaction.

Imriel raised Bastien to his feet and led him across the main chamber to one of the well-appointed side rooms. “I don’t very much like being watched,” he explained as Mavros closed the heavy door.

“I’m wounded,” Mavros teased. Bastien heard a thump as he sprawled on the luxuriant pile of cushions in the far corner. Though he lacked sight, Bastien wasn’t without faculties. He sensed the closer quarters of the chamber, felt the smoother stones beneath bare feet and caught the scent of incense. It was, he thought, a very intimate room.

Imriel snorted. “You don’t count. Especially not when you’re meant to be helping.”

Gracefully, Bastien resumed the _abeyante_ stance. It was strange to hear the musical ebb and flow of Mavros and Imriel’s voices washing over him; stranger still was the easy banter of their conversation. Betimes, it was easy to forget that Shahrizai, and Courcel, were both scions of Kushiel and people. Even they, at times, laid down rod and flail.

“Feel free to begin any time you like,” Mavros said indolently.

In the span of a heartbeat, Imriel’s hands wound firm in Bastien’s hair and pulled, jerking his head back as far as it could go. The line of his neck lay suddenly exposed to the cool air and he was nearly knocked off his feet, muscles complaining loudly at the uncomfortable position. Bastien’s heart stopped for an impossible number of beats, breath caught in his chest, while desire flooded headily through his veins.

He imagined the cold kiss of steel scraping against his throat. In his imagination flechettes carved patterns to his shoulders and chest and his cock, already half-hard from the dungeon itself, strained against his breeches.

“Bastien.” Imriel savored his name, lingering on the sibilant s that divided it. “What do you like?”

“Whatever pleases you, Prince,” Bastien whispered.

Imriel’s teeth grazed on the soft little bit of skin between Bastien’s ear and jaw, drawing forth a strangled little hiss of desire. His muscles protested at the strained position Imriel had him locked in, but his blood yet sang for more. “I like submission, Prince,” Bastien clarified. “I like the moment when I forget my name.”

“Poetic,” Mavros commented, voice gone dark with desire.

“Mm.” Imriel made a noise of agreement. “I mean to hurt you.”

Bastien cocked his head toward the sound of Imriel’s voice. He knew the many ways to wound as well as he knew his own flesh. He knew well, too, that it took no skill to use a lash to beat bruises into the skin of another. It took somewhat more to brush against Kushiel’s grace. Bastien knew Kushiel’s scions, had loved many of them for a few hours passed beneath Valerian House’s floor. He sensed in Imriel that terrible power, crawling along his skin and burning in his eyes.

“I yield,” Bastien murmured. It had always been the mantra of his ilk.

There was a moment, then, of perfect stillness. Bastien could feel the crashing rumble of his heart, hear the half-ragged gasps of his breath and the steady draw of Imriel’s. Beyond the closed doors sounded the beautifully agonized cries of the adepts, low and high, building upon themselves.

Then a sudden explosion of movement as Imriel pulled him to his feet and pushed, sending Bastien careening backwards. He slammed against the rough wall of raw stone with a jarring shock. A noise burst from his throat, part whimper and part growl. The first wave of dull pain slid across his skin and he gloried in it.

Imriel caught Bastien’s wrists in one hand and bound them together with practiced ease. The leather tie was soft, but sturdily unyielding and bit beautifully into Bastien’s thin skin. Then Imriel raised his arms over his head, lashing him stretched along the wall to one of the many iron rings that hung in a neat row. Bastien barely reached the ground on his toes, and his body strummed with taunt tension.

“Be very still,” Imriel growled. Bastien heard the whisper of a blade being drawn.

He knew, of course, that iron-bound rules that governed all the houses of the Night Court, and knew even better the uncompromising strictures that protected Mandrake and Valerian Houses’s sharper pleasures. He’d spent as much time as any adept perusing the special contract Shahrizai held, daydreaming about how those limits might be pushed and expanded.

Bastien _knew_ blood could not be drawn or skin rent in such a way as to leave scars, not while his marque was unfinished and he still owed somewhat to his house. But the cold kiss of tempered steel still brought thrills of terror. Stretched as he was, balanced so precariously, it was a near impossible struggle to remain still.

Bastien keened in the back of his throat and Imriel chuckled kindly. “Don’t fear. I only want to see you.”

A hand caught the neck of Bastien’s shirt and pulled. There came then a moment of pressure, then the sound of cloth ripping as Imriel neatly slit his loose shirt from neck to hem. The cool air of the dungeon hit Bastien’s overheated skin and he shuddered, whimpering and twisting bound on the iron ring, until the cold line of Imriel’s knife pressed sweetly against the paper-thin skin on the rise of his collarbone.

In utter silence, Imriel traced a line down Bastien’s front to the waist of his breeches. With a few rough strokes he made short work of them as well and they fell away, leaving Bastien naked below the waist. “That’s pretty,” Mavros commented appreciatively.

It took somewhat more to get all the many pieces of his tattered shirt cut away, but Imriel worked with a precision that made Bastien quake for want and anticipation. There was something to be said for a patron so roused by passion as to have no control; there was somewhat more to be said for those who wielded control as the added weapon it could be.

“What shall I do?” Imriel asked quietly once Bastien was naked. There was a touch of vulnerability in his voice that told Bastien the question was not meant for him.

Mavros chuckled, but kindly this time. “All tastes are different, Imriel. Do what pleases you and don’t be afraid of what you want, and you will find what you’re seeking. For my part, I like to begin with my hands. It pleases me to know the feel of those I propose to ask submission of.”

Then a moment of considering silence. Bastien flexed his wrists, seeking outward for some assurance of what he logically knew; that he was not alone. The room felt pregnant with tension and anticipation. The quiet urged Bastien’s heart to a galloping pace. He wanted. By Elua and Kushiel and Naamah, he wanted.

Imriel’s hand landed with sudden softness on Bastien’s cheek.

The gentleness of it shocked more than any pain would have. Bastien flinched away and surged closer in twain. With the same ease with which he would have soothed a skittish horse, Imriel stroked his thumb over the Bastien’s cheekbone, steady and sure. And as Bastien relaxed into the touch, he suddenly drew back and slapped with such force as to rock Bastien’s entire body.

Bastien had stoically endured much greater at the hands of patrons, yet the blow brought from him a rending, wailed cry. To the untrained ear it might have sounded like a body breaking, but it was to Bastien release. It was the first true sense of Kushiel’s purging grace and wrapped his body in the sense of coming home.

“Don’t stop,” Mavros advised, at what Bastien could only assume with hesitation on Imriel’s part. His voice sounded as thought it was coming from a great distance. “He will use his _signale_ if he needs it. You must trust him as you ask him to trust you, Imriel.”

“Yes,” Bastien babbled in agreement. “Prince, yes.”

Imriel roughly, desperately curled his hand around the back of Bastien’s neck and pulled him into a kiss that bit and bruised and shocked through them both. Bastien could feel the strain of Imriel’s cock through his breeches. It was a moment of mindless, wild pride; to be equally as wanted in turn.

When they broke apart, Imriel began a thorough exploration of Bastien’s body. Bastien was just taller than the normal for an adept of Valerian and a touch more solidly built through his shoulders. He doubted Imriel stood much taller than him, and yet in Imriel’s hands Bastien felt terribly, beautifully small. It was like to be an instrument in the hands of a prodigy.

Imriel ran his hands over Bastien’s shoulders, soothing taut muscles long enough to lull. Then he mercilessly dug his thumbs into the hollows at the top of Bastien’s collarbone. Raw agony flared along Bastien’s nerves to the sound of Mavros’ contented, delighted laughter and Imriel’s harsh breath. Bastien’s entire body contracted, but stretched as he was there was nowhere to go, no escape to be found.

With a shudder, Imriel released him and pressed a kiss to each blossoming bruise.

He repeated the pattern at Bastien’s hips and on the insides of his thighs. Roaring crescendos of pain chased with great tenderness. Bastien cried out and shook, begging with one voice for release and continuation. Imriel knew all the most delicate spots on his body, even those that Bastien would have thought unique to his skin. Imriel found them and with perfect cruelty, washed Bastien in exquisite pain.

Deliberately, Imriel palmed at the bruises he’d made. “You wound beautifully,” he murmured, as though he spoke the words more honestly to himself. Bastien could find no breath for thanks, just a frantic nod.

“Put a ring on him,” Mavros advised judiciously. “The waiting makes it all the sweeter.”

There were a few moments of repose as Imriel moved to quickly search through the well stocked cabinet of toys; Bastien used them to draw in a handful of shaking, steadying breaths. Everything seemed to come to him with unaccustomed slowness, as it always did in these moments. In submission came a heightened sense of things.

Imriel returned to Bastien and fastened the leather circle around his cock without pretension or teasing. Bastien flexed against his bound wrists, needing contact with mindless desperation. The desire pooled in his stomach redoubled on itself, made all the sweeter for the fruitlessness off it. He was known in Valerian for being of single-minded purpose, his wanton need. Imriel slapped him again.

“I’ve a mind to make you crawl,” he said. Bastien cried his agreement.

Chuckling, Imriel pressed himself upon the length of Bastien’s body and neatly released the tie of leather that bound his wrists together. Bastien dropped suddenly to the floor, landing painfully on his hands and knees with a gasp. His much abused muscles and flesh fair screamed their grievance and his blood rushed hot and heady in his veins. He heard the sound of Imriel’s boots move across the floor, then the rustle of cloth as he lowered himself to the cushions with Mavros.

Bastien held perfectly still, sitting on folded legs his weight braced on his hands. “Crawl for me,” Imriel commanded.

Blindfolded as he was, Bastien forced himself to be mindful that the chambers were not always so simply arranged and their accouterments were changed often enough for him to have no certainty of what he would find. Any one of a dozen implements could stand stern and watchful over the chamber.

He began to crawl slowly, sliding his palms over the cool flagstones. He dropped his head low, groveling as he moved. He thought again of boots pressing him into the floor and shivered.

At what he roughly gauged to be the halfway mark of the chamber, his knuckles rapped against something made of solid wood that had been heavily varnished. Curious, Bastien ran his hands over the many lines and curves, drawing for himself a mental picture.

“What do you think it is?” Mavros asked.

“The pommel horse, Lord,” Bastien answered.

“Very good,” Imriel rumbled. “But I _told_ you to crawl to me, Bastien.”

The heady aggression of the command stirred the barely calm waters of Bastien’s want. He crawled the rest of the way across the room with reckless speed, on the prayer that Imriel would prefer simplicity to the elaborate sets patrons sometimes created. After a few moments, his hand landed on a leather boot and he assumed the _abeyante_ position.

A hand tangled in his head. “So very close,” Mavros said in his mocking voice. His hand slowly tightened, drawing the hot, lovely sting of salt to the corners of Bastien’s eyes. “So you will begin with me, pet.”

The beauty of Mavros Shahrizai was in his contradiction. He laughed as he laid his stripes and always smiled with ease and affection, even as he pushed his cock into someone’s mouth. For Bastien it was no different, taking _languisement_ and demanding all the many skills Bastien had.

His cock was thick and heavy against Bastien’s tongue. He tasted of clean skin and the salt of his body. Mavros tangled both hands in Bastien’s thick hair and held his head unflichingly down, trapping Bastien with little room to move or breathe. He became in that moment a living object of pleasure, mindless and thoughtless, even as his cock hung heavy and untouched between his legs.

“Ah, pet,” Mavros groaned from the very of his chest. Bastien worked his mouth and tongue, lapping and sucking and using every skill at his disposal. Mavros spent himself with a rough sigh down Bastien’s throat. He swallowed messily, savoring the pleased smack Mavros level across his cheek when he pulled back.

But Bastien was still mindful of the task he had yet to fulfill. True to Mavros’ word, a mere six inches shift to the left brought Bastien to Imriel’s leg. In contrition, Bastien sought the smooth leather of his boot, tracing a supple line from knee to toe. The scent was rich, sun-warmed and heady, and the surface as soft as Bastien had hoped. He curled at Imriel’s feet and pressed a kiss to his shoe, begging forgiveness.

“Ah, Elua,” Imriel sighed.

His pain was of a different ilk than Mavros’. Given without cheerful joy, but with a solemn understanding of what it was he dealt and with the grave mercy of Kushiel guiding his every movement. He pulled Bastien between legs askance and let his hands fall away. Meant or not, and Bastien suspected the former, he took the moment as an invitation to reciprocate some of the attention Imriel had paid him.

Crouching, he pressed his face to Imriel’s belly, taking stock of his shirt’s soft fabric and the dizzying spicy scent of his body. Bastien worshipped in his exploration, nosing down the v of muscle and bone to Imriel’s cock, already drawn free from the confines of his breeches. Mindful to lock his hands behind his back, Bastien licked a stripe along the underside of Imriel’s cock.

It was no so long as Mavros’, but broader. Bastien’s mouth still carried the taste of the former lord and the mingling of the two, Shahrizai and Courcel, drew a burn of agonized desire so intense as to nearly make Bastien reel for the strength of it. Into his mouth he drew Imriel’s cock, and into his hair came Imriel’s hands.

Mavros accepted submission and worship with an easy grace born of much practice and long experience. Dandled on the laps of Kushiel’s scions and playing with sharper toys from childhood, there was little to demand of the flesh that he had not already gleefully sampled.

Imriel, for his lineage and the immutable stamp of his mother, seemed not so much to accept submission but to endure it. Bastien had heard the murmured stories of the dark hell the Prince had come from and shivered to think true of them. Like a rock upon which the waves batter and reform, Imriel clung to Bastien as an achor. Bastien poured the whole of his skill into _languisement_ for Imriel. This time, it was the prince who cried out.

As Bastien sensed Imriel’s climax coming upon him, Imriel pulled Bastien’s mouth away and rose violently. The thrumming cord that had stretched between them from the moment Mavros first deigned him not to Imriel’s taste snapped to sudden explosive tautness. Imriel nearly dragged Bastien across the floor and threw him across the same pommel horse his fingers had so recently explored.

Many, many times had Bastien been draped over a horse with his half-limned back turned to a patron, but never before had he felt so keenly the vulnerability of it. His naked flesh on display burned as though the very punishing flames of Kushiel had come to lick at his skin.

He heard the whistle of a flogger swinging through the air for a single moment before he felt the sharp whip of wind on the back of his thighs. Bastien arched, the tangled babble of a scion’s pleas falling from his lips like drops of water in a roaring, thundering river.

“I yield,” Bastien cried again. “Prince, I yield!”

The first stroke of the lash fell like fire on Bastien’s back, building into a crescendo of pain and pleasure and agony and ecstasy. He thought for sure his skin had broken and it was his blood that arced through the air. He thought he would die if Imriel laid another stripe, and he would die if Imriel did not.

Then another, overlaying the first. Where the twain met exploded a column of white hot agony that sizzled along every nerve. Bastien did not realize he was screaming until he drew in ragged breath. His nails tore gouges into the pommel’s wooden legs and he begged in undulating noise for the end, knowing meanwhile that he could live forever in the protracted, glorious moment of submission.

The blows fell and fell again and only when Bastien thought he truly would die from it did Imriel’s hand release the leather ring around his cock. “Submit,” Imriel cried, panted, commanded and Bastien found his moment of infinite, nameless, existence.

Bastien saw white and heard the endless roar of nothing as his body turned itself inside out, seeking the farthest edges of Kushiel’s purging grace.

And then, after a moment of blankness, suddenly terrible, gentle hands were coaxing his fingers to loosen from the pommel. The joints and tendons fair screamed as Bastien inched them open and he whimpered. Strong, careful arms unfolded his abused body from the contraption and nearly carried him to the cushions in the corner, easing him down on his side.

“That was glorious, Imriel,” Mavros said. “Truly.”

“My thanks.” Imriel sounded caught between embarrassment, pride, and deep thought. “Go on. Seek a better pleasure than watching.”

Fondly, Mavros said, “Ah, yes. I forgot this is almost your favorite part. Though honestly, cousin, I doubt there’s anything better to be found in this place tonight,” and went.

In the small moment the door was open to allow Mavros exit, Bastien heard the sharp sounds of the other Shahrizai pleasures, and that of the adepts. He did not hear Imriel kneel down beside him and jumped with he began to untie the length of silk serving as a blindfold.

Bastien blinked at the sudden assault of light on his eyes. For a few blurry moments, Imriel was aught more than a show of muted color and form settling more comfortably in the lush pile of pillows. Then, slowly, he sharpened into a man reclining on his side, observing Bastien.

He had never seen the Prince of the Blood before. Famous though his name was, his visits to Mont Nuit were rare and Bastien, like all adepts, had never really been given much cause to leave Valerian House. Imriel was beautiful, just as all D’Angeline’s were, with the stamp of Shahrizai writ plain in his blue-black hair and dark eyes.

There was somewhat unexpected in the kindness of his features, studying Bastien.

“Are you pleased, Prince?” Bastien ask in a voice that croaked. The Dowayne would have died from shame to hear such a lack of refinement from one of her adepts, but it drew from Imriel an easy smile.

“Much please,” he answered, reaching out to brush one of his knuckles against Bastien’s cheek. “Very, very much pleased. How are you?”

Bastien took a moment to test his body and found the hurts to be no more than any adept of Valerian was taught to endure from the better patrons. It would heal in due course and Bastien certainly could not regret the night. “I’m fine, Prince. We heal quickly and you are very skilled. No permanent harm done.”

“Good.” Imriel smiled again, worrying slightly at his lower lip. “I always wonder.” The tips of his fingers lighted on a bruise like a brush of a bird’s wing.

A sudden wash of warm affection rose up in Bastien for his patron, for his unsure touch and his kind face and the residual ache of his lash. Somewhat boldly, he reached and laced their fingers together, squeezing Imriel’s hand. “I say this with all honesty, Prince. I have rarely had a patron as good as you. And never one better.”

A flush of red rose in Imriel’s cheeks. “Such flattery from one meant to be modest.”

“Submissive,” Bastien corrected. “But rarely modest.”

They shared a moment of understanding, then, as though he suddenly remembered something, Imriel reached behind the cushions and came turned back around with a sizable bag in his hand. Bastien could hear the welcome clink of coins and did his best not to raise his eyebrows. The patrons of Valerian and Mandrake tended to be generous, but still.

Imriel tucked the bag in his hand. “My patron gift, before I forget.”

“I.” Bastien shook his head. “You are too generous.”

“No, I think not.” Imriel soothed his hand over Bastien’s hurts in a long, steady motion. “I have seen Servants of Naamah plying their trade in many ways and many placed. There is nothing but good in honoring her servants.”

The seriousness in his voice woke sudden graveness in Bastien. He measures the weight of the bag in his hand and looked at Imriel. “This should be enough to finish my marque, I think.”

“Ah, well then.” Pleasure broke out on Imriel’s face and he brought Bastien’s hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Even more cause for celebration, then. What will you do, when your marque is finished? Stay here and tithe or go out into the world?”

Bastien had never truly considered the question before and his mouth fell open with no answer. He had been born to Valerian House and raised within the walls from the time he was a babe. There had never been anything beside it, except for the sprawl of Mont Nuit before his feet and, beyond the gates, the City of Elua. Far away lands like Caerdicca and Tiberium and Alba seemed like little more than fairy tales.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

Imriel brushed his hair away from his face. “I didn’t either, once.”

“What did you do?” Bastien asked.

“I?” Imriel rolled onto his back with his arms folded beneath his head. “I went to Tiberium.”

It seemed like only a few minutes more before the Shahrizai came to fetch Imriel from the chamber, with a few servants of Valerian House in tow. Imriel pressed one last chaste kiss to Bastien’s cheeks and want with them, if not joking, at least smiling. Mavros, dark braids tousled, blew Bastien a flirting kiss and said farewell with a broad smile.

One of the physicians contracted permanently to Valerian House looked Bastien over and pronounced him fine. She pressed a small tub of salve in his hand for the worst of it, and tousled his hair with affection before helping him fully to his feet.

He climbed the stairs side by side with Marion, this time leading the way with the twins and Noelle bringing up the rear. They were all wrapped in the serviceable robes stowed away in the dungeons for after the patrons departed. Warm and soft, they felt the best slipping over all manner of hurts.

Marion looked the worse for wear, but her face was lost in a depth of tranquility that Bastien knew would take time to ascend from. He kissed her cheek when they parted and she brought her hand up to touch his shoulder. “You will tell me what happened?”

“Of course,” Bastien promised. “In the morning.”

The first hints of dawn had begun to show in steadily lightening shades of purple and orange as he slipped into the bedroom. It was dark still inside and the room sounded with the comforting sights and rustles of the sleeping adepts. Bastien found his bed with no difficulty and eased his aching body inside. He knew he had instructions to spend at least a day there, letting his body finding the healing it needed.

He was brushing against sleep when Mael’s soft voice piped through the darkness. “Bastien?”

“Yes?”

“I.” Mael swallowed. He sounded like a wide-eyed child asking his parents if the heroes from legend were real and Bastien loved him dearly for it. “Was it Prince Imriel.”

Closing his eyes, Bastien said, “It was.”

“What was he like?”

Bastien thought of the words he usually used to describe his patrons. Cruel and kind, gentle and harsh; they all seemed inadequate to the task of describing the man who laid his hands on Bastien. Save for the priests who wielded lashes with no thought to pleasure, Bastien had never before felt so intensely the presence of the god in his submission.

“He’s a true scion of Kushiel,” Bastien murmured, and hearing Mael’s sigh of understanding, let himself drift to sleep.


End file.
